March 11, 2010

Character!

A frog was sitting by a river swollen by a recent flood, when a scorpion came up to him. “Mr. Frog, the river is much too wide for me to swim across. Could you please take me across on your back?”

“Oh, no,” replied the frog, “when we got to the middle of the river, you would kill me with your sting.”

“Why would I do that?” asked the scorpion. “If I killed you, you would sink to the bottom and I would drown.”

The frog had not thought of that scenario but it made perfectly good sense.

“Okay,” said the frog, “hop on.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Frog,” said the scorpion as he hopped on the frog’s back.

The frog was a strong swimmer, and in no time at all they reached the middle of the river, but still much too far for the scorpion to get safely to the other side. Nevertheless, the scorpion stung the frog with his stinger. As the frog began to die from the poison, and the scorpion began to drown because he had lost his ride, the frog asked incredulously, “Why? Why did you sting me?”

The scorpion replied, “It’s in my character.”

(The text is taken from Nicholas T. Proferes’ wonderful book Film Directing Fundamentals. It is actually an old fable of unknown author.)

P.S. I started the 'Must Watch' recommendations in September 2010. Before that I had watched several movies that must feature in this list. But in order to save myself from the useless and predictable exercise of recommending all great movies, I decided to follow a simple eligibility criterion: The movies recommended here would be among those I watched or re-watched since September 2010. So please do not be surprised if 'Cinema Paradiso' or 'Apocalypse Now' (which are, in my opinion, definite Must Watch) do not feature in here. They will find a place in the list the day I re-watch them.